I am a runner, #3.

Long overdue, but another 5K in the books!  This run wasn't a timed train-up run, but part of being a runner is being able to get out and run a 5K with no training!  My family and I decided to run the Ugly Sweater Run 5K in St. Louis, which was a lot of fun!

Bright shoes ready to race!

Our family was admittedly more into keeping warm and dry (it was barely in the 30s and pouring down rain most of the time) than we were dressing up, but some people went all out!

The fam

I ran mostly with my brother-in-law Lee, my nephew, Sawyer, and my niece, Savannah.  We all got these awesome hats as well as mustache tattoos and free beer (for me, not the kiddos)

In the warm car

The "race" was long and slow and I basically just trotted for 5K, but the kids were awesome!  Sawyer got a few lifts from his dad (and was pretty exhausted that night) but everyone finished strong!  A great time had by all!

Lee giving a lift to Sawyer

Look What My Friends Can Do!

Remember my spray painted branch Christmas tree that sits on my table?  Well check out my mom's interpretation!

It's perfect for post-Christmas when you're sad that your house has gone from Holiday Spirit to Three More Months of Winter!  The white and the red look really fantastic.  And it was so easy.  She gathered some branches, painted them white, and then fixed little cardinals on them.

 The base is really a hurricane glass sitting in a bowl, and she dressed it up with Christmas ornaments, but you could do the same with pine cones, pieces of pine garland, or artificial snow!

 It goes along great with her white and red mantel this year.  Great job, mom!!

A Tale of a Table

We've all seen them.  And by "we" I mean craft losers like me and by "them" I mean those IKEA Lack table hacks where the parents glue down a Lego platform and build a station for kids to play block.  A-like so:

A sample - not the one I did

Well, who am I to turn down such a great idea!  First, I bought these big blocks that I thought were Duplo blocks, which will be fun for Avery, but not a choking hazard for Cassidy.  I got two sets because there isn't that base, flat piece that Legos have and I wanted to use a set to make a platform.  I wish I could properly foreshadow for you what went wrong here, but I'll keep you nice and innocent, like I was at this stage.

This project also gave me a reason to go thrift shopping and pick up this little baby for $7.99.  WHAT?  $7.99!  And it's a solid piece, too.  I used a little 150 grit paper to rub off the shine and then it was time for a primer.  Primer helps the paint bond and also prevents stains from coming through.  I bought water (latex) based, but then read online that some people use oil-based.  Enh, I wasn't overly concerned, so I just gave it a nice thin coat of primer over the course of a couple of days, dusting off the excess sand and a few cobwebs (how long was it at the thrift shop??) along the way.

Primed and ready!

Then, it was time for some color.  I decided to go with a black base and a green top.  The green simulates some grass, and the black just goes with everything, right?  I bought this color and this color and did very thin coats to avoid drips and a sloppy look.  After 2 coats, it looked nice.  And because kids are using this, I also put a layer of Minowax to keep it shiny and wipeable.

Then it was time to set the base.  Like I said, I didn't have a flat base to work off of, so I took the flattest Duplos and made a square on top, playing around with the size of everything.  One I had my pattern, I was ready to glue them together.  So I got out the super glue and.....

Nothing.  No sticking.  So I got out the hot glue gun and....

Nothing.  No sticking.  The hells?

So I got on Skype and showed Jon my failure and he did a little research and told me about this ABS melting glue crap from Lowe's to go buy that would fuse it all together.  So, I went, I bought it, I prepared to make a mess, I put the fusing glue on and.....

Nothing.  No sticking.   HOLY CRAP!  We had researched how to glue Legos/Duplos together, and once we ignored all the haters to think it's punishable by death to glue Legos together (seriously, they are very adamant about this) we had read that this ABS glue should work.  And then Jon said...

"Are you sure they are Duplos?"

(Ali pauses to read the bag)

"Uhhhh....they aren't.  They are Mega Blocks."

Well, guess what everyone, Mega Blocks and Duplos are made of different things, and Mega Blocks apparently can never ever be glued together.

So, it's 3 days before our Christmas Eve, and my cheap project is turning expensive because I have to order Duplos (which SURPRISE! have a base plate piece) on Amazon Prime, but the holiday season means I still have to pay extra to get them there on time.  $70 for two sets of blocks and a base plate.  On our Christmas Eve they arrived in three shipments from three carriers (weird.)

So, during naptime, Jon got out the drill and turned what could have ended up just being a plain random green and black table into this, using the base plate and a shoe container from The Container Store:

And when the kids came down for Christmas morning, it looked like this:

Both kids were super excited, and while I wasn't thrilled with how much it ended up costing, the fun they have with it makes up for it.  And I learned a lesson: Mega Blocks don't glue together.  It was a Christmas miracle :-)

New Years' Resolutions: January!

I asked a bunch of folks via Facebook to share their New Years' Resolutions with me, so we can check in a few times over the course of 2014 and see how they are doing.  Here's where everyone started!

 

Me: I'm starting a business in the next year or so, and it's time to crack down and really get that business plan going so the dream becomes a reality!

 Ellen: Her resolution is to regularly find new, more interesting ways to cook chicken breasts and get her family out of their baked BBQ chicken rut! (Maybe she'll give us some recipes!!)

Todd: His wedding is coming up (I'm officiating!!!!!) and he's determined to drop some weight (I know, he's gorgeous and doesn't need it, right?) before the big day!

Russell:  Russell's going to run a 5K in under 22:00 this year - he ran in high school which was only %$#% years ago, so it should be no problem!

Ryan:  He vows to move to South Carolina by the end of summer.  I'm not sure what's sparking this move, but hope we have a good update by August!

 Kelly:  She's going to clean less and pay someone to do it for her.  Amen, sister.

Anita:  My former voice teacher is bound and determined to learn the words to "La Bamba" and be able to sing it.  I'll help you out with the first two:  Para bailar (I think....) Also, if you're drunk, it's easier.

Greg: This guy is set to move soon, so he wants to clean out all the clutter before heading overseas!

Ben: Fresh from Germany, Ben believes he's carrying a few extra kilos and want to drop them like they're heiß.

 Julia: My sister is going to finish one Pinterest project a month.  She swears!  We'll see :-)  

 Jon: My beloved is going to finish filming a movie he's working on.  And by finish I mean START filming (he's got a jumpstart on the script already).

 Leah: My sister-in-law vows to send birthday cards to everyone in the Beach family this year.  Ha ha ha...there aren't enough stamps in the world for this clan....but mine's March 30th!

So let's cheer on the team!  Want to jump in on the fun?  Add a comment below with your resolution and we'll put you on our team for the first update in February.  Hoping to check in every two months for updates!!!

Teacher Gifts

This one is fast and dirty, as I'm trying to get the house cleaned and everything packed up for our holiday trip to the Midwest, but I wanted to share what I got my kids' 10 (!!) teachers this year for Christmas:

Yep, it's a cookie recipe in a Mason Jar, just add butter, eggs, and a bit of vanilla. 

The recipe is from Spoonful.com, which is owned by Disney.  Luckily, I made a test batch a couple of weeks ago, because 1 stick of butter and 1 egg is NOT ENOUGH to make good dough.  At all.  I had to play around and double it and they came out much better.

Just for fun, I ordered pictures of the kids (5 of Avery, 5 of Cassidy - they each have 5 teachers), cut them out, and modge podged them onto the top. 

Putting it all together with a bit of yarn, some Christmas stickers, and careful pouring, and we get cute holiday cookies in a jar!

Look What My Friends Can Do!

My friend and fellow Airman, Reina, and her kids can make Christmas ornaments from dough!!

Via Pinterest and the Woodside Kitchen, she and her kids used the following recipe:

• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1 cup baking soda
• 3/4 cup water

She heated it on the stovetop on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it formed a ball (about 5 minutes).  Then she placed the dough in a bowl and covered with a damp cloth until it was cool enough to handle.  Once it cooled down, they kneaded it to about 1/4 inch thick, grabbed some cookie cutters and went to town.  Note that they poked a hold in each in order to have a place to thread a ribbon/string to hang. To harden, either air dry or bake at 175 in the oven for an hour.

Waiting for glaze

After some drying, everyone painted them up with some acrylic paint, let them dry, and then Reina sprayed them with a matte acrylic glaze.

 After drying, all that was left was to string and hang them!

Pipe cleaners (or "fuzzy sticks" as we call then in my house)

Gorgeous, and what a fun thing to do with kids!  Great job!

Have Yourself a Military Christmas

This year's theme was green and gold!  For no particular reason other than green isn't the first color people think of when decorating a tree, since it's already green.  I decided to take pity on poor green and have some fun.

First the tree - our second live one (after last year), purchased at Lowe's.  Avery didn't want to buy this one, he wanted to buy one already decorated, because he considered this "just a bush".  Ha ha.

Next was lights - simple gold ones worked for us.  Every morning when I turn the tree on, Cassidy goes "YAY!"

Then it was time for some decorating.  For $1 each, I got a few packs of gold balls, green balls, green sparkly hearts, and gold icicles at Family Dollar.  Can't beat it.  But, something was missing...something fun, quirky, and easy......ARMY MEN!  Yep, for another $1, I picked up a big pack of them and got to work:

Innocent sleeping Army

Spotted by the lookout!

Too late!  Napalmed in my garage

"I'm so embarrassed I wish I could eat this grenade," he seemed to say

Which leads us to the addition of lots of Army men, a bit of garland, and a cheap star to complete it all.

And that's our tree for the holidays!  As nostalgic and nice as it is to put up the same ornaments every year, there's something to be said for being creative and doing something unique each time around!!

Would love to hear what you do - same tree every year?  New challenges?  Real? Fake?  Let me know in the comments!

Holiday Welcome Mat

So, I picked up a couple of these burlappy rugs at IKEA last month with plans to play around with them using paint.  The one I ended up using for my Christmas mat had already gotten some wear and tear from being out front, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway.

I picked up some stencils for about $3 from Amazon (yay for Amazon Prime - I'm obsessed!) and a sample jar of paint from The Home Depot (Red Licorice by Behr).

And voila!

The snowflakes look more like stars, but that's cool, too.  I was going to put them all over, but I kinda like the minimal trim.  The best projects end up changing halfway through, amiright??

It now sits on our front porch under our to-be-decorated-real-live wreath.  And right next to our what-am-I-going-to-do-with-this-chair chair.  Both, I think you'll agree are yawn-a-riffic.  More to come!

Christmas Table

I had a great time putting together my fall table centerpiece, so I wanted to do something for Christmas as well.  Here's a fun and uber-cheap project I came up with that makes our table look pretty cool!

First, I grabbed some sticks from the ground (free!)

And spray painted them silver ($5 buy at Lowes).  The silver on the dark wood makes the branches just look nice and glisteny (this is not a word, blogger tells me) so they aren't too in-your-face silver.

Then, I bought some green yard ($3.50 buy at Michael's) and used some Modge-Podge (already on hand from my fall pumpkin project) and randomly wrapped bits and pieces of the sticks with yarn, leaving some of the silver showing.  I did this while watching the fantastic Hallmark Holiday Movie, "Snow Bride."  Highly recommend if you are lonely.

Next, I took some mini-ornaments ($5, again at Michael's) and tied them to various little branches coming off of my sticks.  I put the whole thing in a big glass jar I bought for another project that I filled partway with river rocks (three bags for $1 each at the Dollar Store)

And there you have it!  A pretty little rustic centerpiece for $16.50.  Not too bad considering I have a whole roll of green yarn left over, a can of silver spray paint, and those river rocks, all of which I can use for other projects.

What's on YOUR table this year?